Thousands of years ago, the Isle of Thunder was known as the Thundering Mountain, home to the mogu's "master". Eventually Lei Shen defeated his own master, and proclaimed himself ruler of the Mogu. He ruled Pandaria from this seat of power until his death. His mogu successor moved the capital to the Mogu'shan Palace in the Vale, and the mountain was mostly abandoned. During the Great Sundering the mountain sank down beneath the waves, with only the peak staying above the sea as an island.[1]

Description from official site

The Isle of Thunder is a gargantuan zone for player characters of maximum level, and its storm-fraught shores are rife with conflict and opportunity. In patch 5.2, you'll advance the war effort on your server through quests relating to the island assault; as your faction progresses, one-time events will open up, allowing you to unlock and explore more of the island. You'll help your faction leaders claim a beachhead, assault the city walls, and forge a path to the front door of the Thunder King's palace. Once you've established a forward base, you'll be able to pick from different types of quests – PvP or PvE – to continue advancing the story.

Loot is plentiful – we've added tons of new daily quests to the zone, with reward satchels that include tokens to summon killable bosses, and keys for the Treasure Room, a single-player loot-grabbing scenario. You'll also be able to unlock new reward areas throughout the island, including the Lightning Forge: once used by the ancient mogu to craft weapons of titanic power, now co-opted by your side's blacksmiths.

Getting there

To get to the Isle of Thunder, take a portal from the faction camps outside the Shado-Pan Garrison in west-central Townlong Steppes. The island is in its own instance and it is not possible to fly there. This portal does not show up if you are not at an appropriate stage.

Wild pets

Wild creatures

Notes

Like the Isle of Quel'Danas, players cannot travel to this island without help and are restricted to ground mounts only. If you attempt to fly to the Isle of Thunder's supposed location from mainland Pandaria, your way will be blocked by impenetrable mists, which have been in place since 5.0.

The island introduces new wave graphics along the coasts.

Trivia

Before it was remade from scratch in Patch 5.2, the isle had a different shape and was a dense jungle similar to Krasarang Wilds. It was rumored to be the "Zandalari Isle" from early alpha map drafts. The early version can be briefly seen in the distance when Lorewalker Cho is looking upon it from Townlong Steppes in the official patch trailer (the reason for it is most likely Blizzard didn't update the isle on the main Pandaria instance, and the proper isle itself is located in separate instance).

In beta builds, it was known as the Isle of Lightning or Lightning Isle.

Gallery

Annotated map of the Isle of Thunder

Patches and hotfixes

Hotfix (2013-07-26): "Additional fixes for situations where players using incantations to summon bosses were receiving the error message "You can't do that right now.""

Hotfix (2013-07-03): "Made additional fixes for an issue where players may be unable summon incantation bosses."

Hotfix (2013-05-24): "Summonable bosses on the Isle of the Thunder King will drop their unique weapons more frequently."

Tools

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